Lenovo’s crazy smartwatch has a second screen that’s 20 times larger when held up to your eye

Smartwatches are a dime a dozen these days. You’ve got round ones, square ones, leather ones, metal ones, and everything in between. But not one of them can hold a candle to the Magic Eye smartwatch Lenovo has shown off at the Tech World show in Beijing.

At first glance it looks a lot like a Moto 360, right down to the frustratingly cut-off screen - unsurprising, given that Lenovo owns Motorola.

And then it hits you - there’s something above the strap, just below the display. And, well… it ain’t pretty.

But that’s okay, because rather than being a uselessly small second screen, the Visual Interactive Display uses clever optical reflection trickery to produce virtual images that are 20 times larger than the watch face itself.

There is a catch, of course. You have to bring the screen right up to your eye for the effect to work.

Try it right now. Lift your wrist up, and bring your watch strap right up to your eye. Squint a bit. Feign chuckling at a hilarious cat video.

You look like an idiot. Sorry.

Still, at least it’s different, and we applaud Lenovo for trying to tackle the privacy issues associated with smartwatches. No one can read your messages if you’ve got a screen pressed right up to your eye, after all.

The watch itself is running a modified version of Android as opposed to Android Wear, and is currently a proof of concept, with no word on intentions of a final release date.

Find a way to project a hologram in front of our eyes, and we're sold.